One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Mount Airy you can estimate when you can plant echinacea by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Echinacea

Frost tolerance for echinacea:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since echinacea are barely cold tolerant you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant echinacea in Mount Airy is March. However, you really should wait until April if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant echinacea and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your echinacea may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your echinacea indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Mount Airy. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Mount Airy and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Mount Airy there is a last frost after April 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your echinacea if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Mount Airy

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Mount Airy

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Mount Airy.